Silly British sex comedy about Brendan Price and his affairs with various women. The comedy is pretty lame and no one can act, but it's innoffensive and it has a very pleasant low-key tone. Also this has plenty of nude shots of Price (rear shots only) and plenty of attractive nude women so there's something for everyone! Perfect for a rainy afternoon.
4 Reviews
Confessions of a Window Cleaner forerunner is a real waste of time
Leofwine_draca23 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I don't mind watching a good, cheesy British sex comedy of the 1970s. After all, this was the era when the genre flourished and seen today the CONFESSIONS films et al have a certain nostalgic charm about them. Sadly, SECRETS is the worst I've seen yet, a sprawling and brawling would-be epic about the misadventures of a particularly unengaging character, played by the wooden Brendan Price.
The crux of the film is about Price attempting to sell vacuum cleaners to various bored housewives. Occasionally he gets into bed with them in scenes that the following year's CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER would get perfect, but the direction and particularly the script of this film are nothing special and much of the time the comedy is so laboured and unremarkable that it just isn't enjoyable. Price is an unappealing hero, lacking the cheeky charm that made Robin Askwith such a favourite in his series of films, and the female talent is also underused. Although there's ample nudity, not much of it is titillating and much of it just seems shoehorned into the plot to make a point.
Director Wolf Rilla made the sci-fi classic VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED back in the day but he must have fallen from grace to be stuck with this film. He displays little talent and despite lots of exterior shots you don't really get an enjoyable sense of British kitchen-sink comedy. There's a cameo from CORONATION STREET star Johnny Briggs as a rival vacuum cleaner salesman and some hard work from some of the appealing young actresses, but for the most part this film's a dud and it's easy to see why it's forgotten in favour of the more popular franchise flicks.
The crux of the film is about Price attempting to sell vacuum cleaners to various bored housewives. Occasionally he gets into bed with them in scenes that the following year's CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER would get perfect, but the direction and particularly the script of this film are nothing special and much of the time the comedy is so laboured and unremarkable that it just isn't enjoyable. Price is an unappealing hero, lacking the cheeky charm that made Robin Askwith such a favourite in his series of films, and the female talent is also underused. Although there's ample nudity, not much of it is titillating and much of it just seems shoehorned into the plot to make a point.
Director Wolf Rilla made the sci-fi classic VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED back in the day but he must have fallen from grace to be stuck with this film. He displays little talent and despite lots of exterior shots you don't really get an enjoyable sense of British kitchen-sink comedy. There's a cameo from CORONATION STREET star Johnny Briggs as a rival vacuum cleaner salesman and some hard work from some of the appealing young actresses, but for the most part this film's a dud and it's easy to see why it's forgotten in favour of the more popular franchise flicks.
British sex comedy of the damned! (actually though, its not that bad)
lazarillo7 May 2009
As 70's British sex comedies go this is not nearly as good as "Eskimo Nell", "The Sex Thief", or some of the better "Confession of. ." entries. But it's certainly better than crap like "Sex Ray" and "The Amorous Milkman". A provincial lobster fisherman (Brendan Price) decides to come to London for some reason and winds up in a boardinghouse full of luscious lovelies. One them (Sue Longhurst) is an "actress" who gets him a job with her on a "blue movie" where she proceeds to shag the holy hell out of him for the British version--and then they do the "continental version"! Another of the girls, "Sally Cockburn" (pronounced "Coburn"), comes home to find him occupying her old room and bed, so even though they've never met, she proceeds to strip off and hop into bed with him. Felicity Devonshire meanwhile plays the youngest of the girls, a "17-year-old" who would no doubt succeed in teasing him to death, constantly flouncing around seriously under-dressed and begging him "to make her a woman", if he weren't getting so much sexual release from her "older" housemates.
There's also a repressed religious girl and a nice Jewish girl who gets him a job as a door-to-door salesman at the vacuum-cleaner company where she works, which finally justifies the title. Of course, this also gives him an opportunity to have even MORE sex with various randy housewives (and it gives the script a lot of opportunities to make bad jokes about "sucking" and "blowing"). This whole time though he has fallen in love with a French au pair (Jean Harrison), who he first picks up on the highway wrapped only in a towel after one of HER romantic escapades has gone awry, and he tries to convince her to stay in England. This movie has the kind of "fooled-around-and-fell-in-love" thing going, much more typical of Hollywood sex comedies, where it ultimately tries to move from raunchy to romantic. And like most of its Hollywood ilk, it is not entirely successful.
Still, I always enjoy Sue Longhurst and Felicity Devonshire (they were crumpet, but definitely grade-A crumpet) and Price and most of the other actors are pretty OK. Amazingly, this movie was directed by Wolf Rilla, who years earlier had directed the British horror/sci-fi classic "Village of the Damned". Obviously, HIS career had seen better days. But this is not an entirely embarrassing effort, especially as far as THIS genre goes.
There's also a repressed religious girl and a nice Jewish girl who gets him a job as a door-to-door salesman at the vacuum-cleaner company where she works, which finally justifies the title. Of course, this also gives him an opportunity to have even MORE sex with various randy housewives (and it gives the script a lot of opportunities to make bad jokes about "sucking" and "blowing"). This whole time though he has fallen in love with a French au pair (Jean Harrison), who he first picks up on the highway wrapped only in a towel after one of HER romantic escapades has gone awry, and he tries to convince her to stay in England. This movie has the kind of "fooled-around-and-fell-in-love" thing going, much more typical of Hollywood sex comedies, where it ultimately tries to move from raunchy to romantic. And like most of its Hollywood ilk, it is not entirely successful.
Still, I always enjoy Sue Longhurst and Felicity Devonshire (they were crumpet, but definitely grade-A crumpet) and Price and most of the other actors are pretty OK. Amazingly, this movie was directed by Wolf Rilla, who years earlier had directed the British horror/sci-fi classic "Village of the Damned". Obviously, HIS career had seen better days. But this is not an entirely embarrassing effort, especially as far as THIS genre goes.
Naughty Wives
BandSAboutMovies18 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
The UK movie Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman was released in the U. S. by Cannon as Naughty Wives, which is definitely a dirtier if not better label for this.
David Clyde (Brendan Price, who was also in the British sex comedy The Amorous Milkman) gets a job as a vacuum salesman and soon finds that he's being chased by women.
Director Wolf Rilla is best known for Village of the Damned while writers Joseph McGrath shot some of the first music videos with The Beatles and Denis Norden wrote a lot for David Frost.
This is pretty much true to form for most British sex comedies - a funny line here and there, some nudity there. Today it seems quaint but I'm sure in 1973 pulses raced.
David Clyde (Brendan Price, who was also in the British sex comedy The Amorous Milkman) gets a job as a vacuum salesman and soon finds that he's being chased by women.
Director Wolf Rilla is best known for Village of the Damned while writers Joseph McGrath shot some of the first music videos with The Beatles and Denis Norden wrote a lot for David Frost.
This is pretty much true to form for most British sex comedies - a funny line here and there, some nudity there. Today it seems quaint but I'm sure in 1973 pulses raced.
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